Jay Honeck wrote:
Decimated since when? Post a reference statistic and time as a starting
point.

Well, let's start with the fact that France's efforts at flight pre-date our
own. Is 1903-ish far enough back for you?

No, I requested figures, not dates. You've shown no numbers to indicate
the size of aviation before it was "decimated," (which means, in the
dictionary, that one in ten has been done away with.) How many planes,
pilots, airfields or any other topic you want to use, were there before
it was decimated? How do you know aviation is any smaller than it ever
was?

What taxes particularly are you referring to?

Avgas taxes. The price of avgas in France (as the subject of this thread
states) has now exceeded $7.50 per gallon, solely as a result of their very
aggressive tax policies.


What was the price before, and how much were the taxes?

Where does France get its processed petroleum products and what factors
make the cost of avgas what it is?

I presume that they get their petroleum from the same worldwide supply

We get gasoline and avgas in the US from refineries in this country. One
blows up and the price goes up a dime a gallon. Texas refineries don't
send avgas back aross the ocean, it must be refined in that region. The
world crude-oil market notwithstanding, their operations and volume and
costs and other factors in France determine what REFINED petroleum costs
are there.
Gasoline in European countries has been several times the cost in the US
for decades.
So why are you under the impression it's gone up some time in the recent
past?

Heck, I'd be quite willing to agree with you, if you started this out
with facts. Verifiable data is convincing, baseless opinion is not.
Lacking facts, you could be perfectly opposite reality about everything.
Get some solid data, or you're just building a brick wall without the
bricks.